Tech Club Wrap-Up-Literally

We ended our tech club on a snowy March 1st. Some of the kids wanted to express what they learned in a video. The kids told me what they wanted to speak about and we chose that as the background for the green screen. 

Some of them got really "wrapped up" in the creation. 

Projects +

The kids finished up their project this week. I am pretty impressed with what they accomplished in such little time with not a ton of direction. 

Click on the links to see their Google Slides presentations: 


JaiShaun: Code.org  
Evan and London: Sphero  
Lilli, Grace, and Grace: iMovie
Giffin and Chase: LittleBits  
Lydia and Graham: Stop Motion   
Evan and London: Dash Robots 
Jackson and Noah: MakeyMakey
Gavin and Grant: Ozobots 
Evelyn and Isabella: Green Screen 

Check out the Added Bonus Features!
I love seeing what these kids can create when left to experiment and explore with technology. 

The Graham and Lydia Show

9 Year-Old-Spy

TechClub Testimonials 

Creating Presentations

Students have been working hard over the past two sessions to create their How-To presentations. They seemed to all be really enjoying creating the Google Slides. It was fun to see them get excited about adding pictures and videos. A few of the kids were risk-takers and decided to add voice over and screencast to their presentations! 

Week 3/4 - Developing Ideas

During weeks three and four the students have been developing ideas for their presentations. After playing, exploring, and inquiring the past two weeks students were able to take an interest survey to express which topic they would be interested in working on. I used the results from the Google form to place students in coding, circuitry, and digital creation groups. 

They were first asked to draft what their presentation would look like. I asked them to think about the steps they would need to give someone that had never used the technology before. 

Next, the student received a quick introduction to Google Slides. I was pretty impressed how most of them got right to work creating the presentation without ever using Google Slides before. Again, it goes to show how quick kids can pick things up! 

Week 2 - Learning Through Play

This week's focus was still on exploration and inquiry. If you would have walked into the

computer lab today you would have seen what looked like a bit of chaos. However, this chaos, or what I like to call old fashion "play" is what really helps the students develop understanding and ideas for their projects. Check out all the ways these students were learning through play! 

The girls playing with the green screen and DoInk app to create an interview. 

Make sure to check out "The House On Lincoln Lane" 

LittleBits were a huge hit with some of the boys. Griff made a wrist laser! 

Some of the kids explored the Ozobots. I love that these little bots can be used in some many different ways! 

This video is a great example of the students learning through play. I love at the end the two boys on the floor are completely oblivious to the other groups running laps around 

and over them! 

TechClub 2.0 - Exploration and Inquiry

After a snow day put a damper on our first Lincoln Tech Club meeting we were finally able to get started with TechClub 2.0! The "cast" this year again consists of fifteen 2nd through 4th-grade students that are interested in learning more about technology. 

The first few weeks will be about exploration and inquiry. There were many giggles tonight as they tinkered with the Google Docs collaboration features. Of course, they thought it was fun to type silly things and try to erase each other's stuff. However, it is important to allow students to have a bit of play time with a new tool, to get the giggles out.  We came back together as a group and discussed the importance of collaboration and communications and how using a collaborative doc can be helpful when working in a group (and that next time we would agree to be less obnoxious about it). 

The kids spent most of the night playing, creating, and tinkering with technology tools of their choice. We had a small group creating a movie using iMovie, a few test driving the Spheros and Dash robots, and many trying out coding. 

The end project for TechClub 2.0 this year is to put together how-to videos for all for the teachers at Lincoln. Students will work in groups to develop video's/presentations/guides on how to say, use the Spheros, or how to use the DoInk app so students can make green screen movies in the classroom. 

Video curtiousy of Lydia. She set up our new try pod and was trying it out!

Some of the boys trying out Scratch Programming.

And That's The End

All good things must come to an end...

...but this is not the end of Lincoln Technology Club. This was such a great learning experience for all of us, and ideas are already in the works for next year. Whether we like it or not, technology is going to be a huge part of our children's future. We need to continue to make our children "future ready" and prepare them for jobs that do not even exists yet. Imagine the day when children want to dress up like a coder, a robot counselor, or a social media manager for Halloween! Until next year...

Keep on creating, learning, and innovating!